Sundance and celebrity
When I left for Sundance last week, I thought I’d have time to blog about it from Park City. But we were so busy running around asking celebs to join Six Degrees and getting them to sign swag for charity, that it didn’t happen. We were very pleased by the response (nothing like celebs to get the media to pay attention). I can report that Jeremy Sisto and Heather Graham are especially stunning in person, not just outside but inside, since they were supportive of Six Degrees! If you’re a Six Feet Under fan, you’ll be happy to hear Jeremy and Lili Taylor signed the same swag bag for charity. But of course I’m the biggest fan of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick for all they’ve done to call attention to charity. Here they are signing swag bags, which we’ll be auctioning off on eBay.
We spent the week in the EW Photo Studio, where Six Degrees partner Entertainment Weekly was taking photos of the casts of many of the Sundance films. They kindly let us set up in their green room, where we met with the celebs and talked about Six Degrees while they were waiting to get photographed. Tons of people were outside the studio hoping to get a glimpse of the action, and every time my colleagues and I stepped out on the balcony to check out the scene on the street, you could hear the collective sign of disappointment that we were not famous or glimpse-worthy. Clearly they weren’t Robin Hood Marketing fans. Here are the photogs mobbing the lovely Famke Janssen, (white beret) who signed a Six Degrees swag bag for us.
I also met P Diddy, who patiently agreed to my request to sign a bag for charity at the EW party. (That’s Kevin Bacon’s back.) When Diddy walked down Main Street earlier that day, he had a massive pack of fans and cameras tracking his every move.
All the celebs we approached were willing to sign bags—just goes to show you they’re just like us. If you make something easy and it has a reward, people will usually take action.
I find it interesting to have had this celeb-extravaganza experience the same day research came out showing celebrities don’t much influence giving, but that the word of friends and family makes a big difference. Our hope is the site will draw people because of the novelty of the celeb involvement, but that what will engage them is a chance to be a celebrity for their own cause, in their own circles, by asking people to support their own favorite charities. We’ll see - so far we have good traffic and donations steadily ticking up.
I invite comments and reactions from the smart folks out there. It’s all a work in progress and feedback is a good thing.
Syndicate
Congratulations on the launch of this great campaign! have you seen this link from Seth Godin, GetActive on other nonprofits doing great online markteing?
http://www.squidoo.com/org20